Ashley Robert Quirk faces Stanthorpe Magistrates Court for two counts of fraud

A 26-year-old has learnt the hard way that crime doesn’t pay after he faced court for defrauding two people more than $10,000 in a bid to clear his drug debts.

A Stanthorpe man’s drug-fuelled fraud spree has been revealed after his offending caught up with him.

Ashley Robert Quirk faced Stanthorpe Magistrates Court on Wednesday where he pleaded guilty to two charges of fraud, dating from 2022.

The court was told the 26-year-old farmhand was “battling an addiction” at the time of offending, and used the drug meth “sporadically”.

Defence lawyer Joe McConnell told the court Quirk’s offending occurred within the “height of his drug addiction” and the crimes were committed in order to pay off his drug debt.

On July 9, 2022, in Brisbane, Quirk advertised a 2011 Jeep for sale for $7000, and sold it, however after the buyer tried to transfer the registration of the vehicle into his name he discovered the vehicle had been stolen.

Ashley Robert Quirk faced Stanthorpe Magistrates Court on Wednesday where he pleaded guilty to two charges of fraud. Photo: Facebook.

Fortunately, the true owner of the vehicle got the vehicle back, however, the buyer was out of pocket due to Quirk’s offending.

The court was told on September 18 2022, another person was selling power tools on Facebook, and Quirk expressed interest in buying.

Quirk met the seller and arranged to meet them and gave the seller a cheque for $3400 in exchange for the tools, however the court was told Quirk did not honour the cheque and deleted the Facebook post after the seller tried to contact him.

Magistrate Virginia Sturgess labelled Quirk’s offending as “very significant, high-level fraud” and that his actions were a “serious offence of dishonesty”.

“No doubt your offending was caused by drugs, it’s pretty obvious drug use is behind this,” she told Quirk.

The magistrate labelled Quirk’s offending involving the two victims and over $10,000 worth of cash gained dishonestly as “completely unacceptable and not fair”.

“It’s not fair for you to be spreading misery far and wide because you have a problem you’re not addressing,” Ms Sturgess said.

Quirk was sentenced to two years probation, and ordered to pay restitution to the two victims a combined cost of $10,4000 over a period of six months. No conviction was recorded.